‘Are they, boy?’
Corbett patted his horse’s neck and, feeling beneath his robe, took out his money purse. The boy’s eyes rounded.
‘I’ll make sure Horehound gets your message.’ He deftly caught the coin Corbett threw.
‘And the foreigners?’ Corbett asked.
The boy, grasping the silver coin tightly, shook his head. ‘They talk in their own tongue; sometimes it’s difficult to understand. All they are interested in is wool and which farms are to be visited or which manor lord has the best flocks. They gave Master Reginald good silver for that information.’
‘You didn’t come for that, did you?’ Ranulf drew his horse alongside Corbett’s.
‘No I didn’t.’ The boy licked his lips and looked furtively back towards the tavern. ‘It’s the young girls who were killed. I don’t like Master Reginald, too free with his fists, and he is always trying to put his hand up some wench’s skirt. They make fun of him, you know.’
‘Who?’ Corbett asked, leaning down again.
‘The wenches. They composed a song about him. One night, just as autumn broke, they came down and sang it beneath his window, a truly rude song with lewd words. Master Reginald drove them off.’
The boy jumped with glee as Corbett spun him another coin. He caught this and, quick as a rabbit, disappeared back into the bushes. Corbett turned his horse and glanced at the gateway. He thought of Master Reginald with his cart going in and out of the castle, of that crossbow carefully stowed away.
‘Some of the wenches,’ Ranulf declared, reading Corbett’s mind, ‘might have been friendly with him; they would allow him to come close.’
‘Aye, they would,’ Corbett replied. ‘I wonder if we have just supped with their assassin.’
They continued their journey down to the church, and by the time they had hobbled their horses just inside the lych gate, they could tell by the tolling of the bell that Father Matthew had already begun his Mass. Corbett walked into the church and paused in the porchway, sniffing the air. It was not the usual incense or wax, or even the mustiness of an ancient place, but an odour he couldn’t recognise or, as yet, place. Ranulf was also intrigued, and pulled a face at Corbett’s questioning look.
From the small sanctuary Father Matthew’s powerful voice echoed.
‘Respice mei Domine, respice mei Domine.’ Look at me, Lord, look at me.
Corbett joined the small congregation of villagers, charcoal burners and woodmen who had drifted into the church for the Mass arranged to suit their hours of labour. They worshipped God, ate and drank in the nearby tavern and worked until it was too dark to continue, a motley collection in their fustian jerkins, hose and shabby boots. The women wore high-necked gowns and dresses, dark greens or browns; they stamped their mud-encrusted boots against the sanctuary floor, pulling back hoods to reveal faces turned raw by the biting wind. They were friendly enough, peering shyly at these King’s men, openly admiring the leather riding boots and Ranulf’s quilted jerkin.
Father Matthew, however, standing at the altar in his purple and gold vestments, was intent on the Mass. Corbett listened carefully to the Latin and recognised that the priest had not only a good knowledge of the classics but a sure grasp of the Roman tongue. The Latin of many village priests was sometimes difficult to understand, but Father Matthew enunciated every syllable. Corbett watched with interest as he celebrated, turning to lift the Host, calling on the congregation to adore the Lamb of God.
Once Mass was finished, Corbett waited in the porch for the priest to join them.
‘Well, well.’ Father Matthew came striding down the nave, black robe fluttering. He clasped Corbett’s hand. ‘Sir Hugh, you wish to have words with me?’
‘First, Father, the smell?’
‘A little sulphur,’ the priest replied. ‘Sometimes I leave the door open; we’ve even had the occasional vixen nest her cubs in here. They always leave their offerings to the Lord!’
‘Could we go to your house, Father?’
‘I have to take the Viaticum to some of our sick,’ the priest apologised. ‘But one day soon, Sir Hugh . . .’ His voice trailed off.
‘Tell me, Father, do you have a crossbow?’
‘Yes, I do,’ the priest replied wearily. ‘And a quiver of quarrels. I wondered when you would come and question me, Sir Hugh, yet I’ve told you all I can. As regards those young women, I school them here in the nave, I hear their confessions, and on Sundays and Holy Days I share the Eucharist with them.’
‘They are not unruly or disobedient?’ Corbett asked.
‘Sir Hugh, if you wish to find out what they think of me, why don’t you ask them? On the morning I found poor Rebecca, I was here in the church. I heard Alusia scream. It cut like a knife.’ Father Matthew stared at this sharp-faced clerk and the other one standing deep in the shadows. ‘I really must press on.’ His words came out in a rush. ‘Soon it will be the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and after that comes Christmas. I must start collecting wood for the crib, as St Dominic taught us.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Sir Hugh, you are always welcome to return.’
‘I think he wanted us to go.’ Ranulf grinned as they unhobbled their horses.
‘He did seem nervous,’ Chanson intervened.
‘Yes, yes, he did.’
Corbett gathered the reins in his hands and stared back at the church, an ancient building with crumbling steps, though the door was new and reinforced with iron studs.
‘A strange one, Father Matthew,’ he mused as he thrust his boot into the stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. ‘His Latin is perfect, yet he held the Host in a way he should not. After the consecration, Ranulf, the priest is to keep his thumb clasped against his forefinger; it’s a petty part of the ritual.’
‘Perhaps he was cold, as I was,’ Ranulf snapped.
‘And for a poor parish priest he seems to know a great deal about the Virgin Mary and the teaching that she was conceived without sin, and yet,’ he urged his horse on, ‘he doesn’t seem to remember that it was St Francis, not St Dominic, who fashioned the first crib.’
The Secrets of Nature are not to be committed to the skins of sheep and goats.
Chapter 7
Horehound sat on the edge of the snow-fringed marsh. He was freezing and famished. He wanted to sleep and dream about a charcoal fire above which venison steaks, basted with oils and herbs, slowly roasted. He shook himself from his reverie – he had seen men of the woods lose their wits; hadn’t that happened to Fleawort three winters ago, when he had run himself to death chasing a stag no one else could see? The cold was intense. Horehound’s belly had had nothing more than watery viper soup, and he realised how desperate the situation had become. Game was growing scarce, or was it simply that they were losing their skill? Foxglove had died chattering his sins whilst Horehound pretended to be a priest and mumbled words which sounded like Latin. One day he would ask a priest if Foxglove would have escaped the pains of Hell. Horehound stuck a finger in his mouth and rubbed his sore gum. The idea which had occurred to him in the warmth of Master Reginald’s kitchen had grown like a seed in the ground. He’d crouched behind the tombstones and watched that King’s man. The stranger was like Sir Edmund – a just, honest officer of the law.
‘I’m sure it is here.’ The outlaw known as Skullcap nudged his leader.
‘I’m not getting too close,’ Horehound snapped. ‘If there is something here to show me, what is it?’
Skullcap edged forward, forcing aside the brambles and the thick hardy bushes. Horehound glanced quickly around. They were not far from the Tavern in the Forest, close to the trackway leading to the castle. He had to be careful. Sir Edmund’s verderers were not unknown to go on patrol even in this weather.
‘Come on,’ he snarled.
Skullcap, eager to prove his case, was now crawling forward. He reached the snow-encrusted reeds and pulled these aside.